I am not sure of the exact wording but it was something along these lines, “Your scans look good and you are five years out. Congratulations, the chance of this cancer recurring is now less than ten percent.” When I heard my oncologist say that, it put a smile on my face; for three reasons.

First, it tickled me that my guy just can’t let go of doctor speak. “The chance of this cancer recurring” I get it Doc. All those other cancers are still out there and you aren’t guaranteeing anything. I understand that I’m not going to live forever. One day something is going to get me but I promise I won’t tell my family to sue you if anything bad happens.

Then there’s that business about being less than ten percent. Everyone always says that like it should feel like a sure thing. Not really. That’s what they said the first go round and it came back. Less than ten percent just ain’t as little as it used to be. You want to play the less than ten percent game with me? Let’s say I tell you that you have to be in your house tomorrow night at seven. You can be in any room you want. You can stand, sit or lie down but at exactly seven I am going stand in your front yard and shoot a high powered rifle through your house. Hey, don’t worry, there’s a less than ten percent chance that I’ll hit you. Still feel like a sure thing?

Of course, aside from my dark humor, brought to you by metastatic melanoma, the man did say, good scans, five years out, and the truth is my chances are good enough that if I were playing Texas Hold’em, I’d to go all in. Smile indeed.

So, it seems now is a good time to look back and acknowledge a few things I learned the past five years…

1) I learned to stay a little more in the present day. It’s cliché but all any of us truly have is today so don’t let it slip away due to worry about the past or the future. This came home to me one morning as I rode down the road wondering what my chances of survival were. Suddenly it dawned on me that perhaps the one certainty of my day was that I was not going to die from cancer on that day. There was nothing to say I was going to make it to supper but it wasn’t going to be cancer that got me. So, I decided to put my hospice orientation weekend on hold and be where I was, in the here and now. On that day I loved some people, tried to do good work, and said thank you a lot. Got up the next day and did it again.

2) I learned that I actually wasn’t afraid to die. (except when I thought about it too much) Mostly, I was just sad because what I realized is that I love being alive. I love my family. I love laughing. I love loving. So I put in an official request. I asked God to let me see my youngest grandson graduate high school. Kathryn gets mad at me about this one. She says my negotiating skills need honing and seventy-eight (in case he fails a grade) is too young. I tell her I’ll take an extension if one is offered. I’d love to talk to my grandson about whatever he chooses to do with his life, I want to meet his children, I’d like to go on vacation with a whole gang of grands and greats (on them). But a deal is a deal. If I can see him graduate I’ll go without whining. If it’s before then, I’ll trust next chapters to God but I’m still going to file an official complaint because I love this life and the people in it.

3) I learned that being brave isn’t much like bravado. It’s being able to keep moving. It’s caring about other folks, smiling, and doing your job. Mostly, it’s keeping an outward focus. Cancer wants to suck you inside yourself. It wants to scare you and make you focus on yourself and the lousy cards in your hand. The best way to fight cancer is to fight that. I learned this from the guy in the treatment room with me who may have weighed one hundred and twenty pounds and could almost walk. One day he shuffled past me as I lay there with some very expensive chemicals dripping in my arm. He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Hang in there.” In that moment his soul touched my soul. His path was much rougher than mine but he was encouraging, and by that I mean in couraging, me on my path. There were lots of folks like him along the way. I tried to be like them and as I did, I grew stronger. I grew braver.

4) Along with this I learned that we do get strength from others. You can feel prayers. Prayer shawls, meals, hugs, pats on the back, and listening ears impart super powers. Special sources of hope and comfort are the fellow survivors and their families. Over the course of five years the cancer family grows. Not everyone makes it. All become precious to you and transform your life.

5) Thanks to cancer I have become more grateful, more appreciative, more aware of the gift of a new day. That’s not to say that I don’t still piss some time away. I guess that is one of the banes of the human condition but it’s less, way less than it used to be.

6) Finally I learned a little bit about miracles. I don’t mean the miracles of medicine and prayer that wipe out cancer cells. Those are wonderful and they are real but I’m talking about deeper and more profound stuff. I have learned that God can take something as awful as cancer and make it a teacher, a blessing even. You see, it’s when we are at the end of our resources, when health, willpower, and even our human faith are depleted; that’s when the whole thing gets turned around and becomes a true conversion experience. That’s where we have the opportunity to discover that God is still with us and will never let us go. Never.

All of this is not to say that cancer is particularly fun. But if you have to go there, you may as well learn something. You may as well come through seeing a little more clearly, loving a little more dearly, following a little more nearly.

All in all it’s been quite an adventure.

Postscript: There is such a thing as survivor’s guilt. Like I said, some of my fellow travelers, people more talented, people who were needed more than me, didn’t make it. I carry them in my heart and have filed a complaint on their behalf.